The Brightest Thing They've Ever Seen
by syrrah
Summary: Life is bad enough without the sword of the Reaping constantly hanging over our heads. Then all at once, my best friend Gale is acting strangely and so is the baker's son Peeta Mellark. But what happens at the Reaping overshadows everything.
1. Chapter 1

_I decided I wouldn't post a new story unless it was completely finished, but I've gone back on my decision... I'm so excited about the movie coming out I really wanted to get what I've written of this story so far out there!_

**The Brightest Thing They've Ever Seen**

Ch 1

We call ourselves the Mynas. This is a play on words, and it stands as testament to the disdain we feel for our rivals. The work of our menfolk is mining, and we of the night, of the dark, of the shadows, take pride in the knowing that the despised and detested _others_ don't even understand our name. Mynas - the birds - are excellent mimics, and are intelligent and aggressive. We have named ourselves for strength and cleverness, but those stupid _others_ think we title ourselves for the occupation of our fathers.

The _others_ are the Merchants, shortened to Mercs. They're the offspring of the wealthy in this town - shop owners, business owners, entrepreneurs. They don't have to spend the daylight hours slaving a mile underground in a pit that could kill them. They don't wake every morning of their lives with the dread of knowing they have to go down again, into the poisonous hell below us. They don't have coal dust pitted into their very pores.

The nights are ours. Boys don't receive their overalls and their punch-cards and their glow-black helmets until they're eighteen, and we girls never get them. It's not a blessing to be a girl though - once you've had a brother or a father or an uncle or a boyfriend perish down there, you know the horror of loss, and it's not as though the loss can be planned for. When my father was blown to pieces it hit my mother, my sister and me really, really hard. The community offers what support it can - but the landowners, the employers, the Capitol - they offer nothing. Women aren't much use to them in this grimy town, and they'd probably rather that there were fewer girl babies born, and more male. They're probably working on a way to engineer that, right now.

But I'm busy right now, too. I have a family to feed, and other concerns besides.

Every year that my name isn't picked out of the draw for the Reaping could be my last year, and so I have to make that twelve months count. I set up networks, I negotiate. I do favors, I build up credits. No-one here amongst the mining community has quite enough in terms of the material, but we try to look out for one another as best we can. In what little spare time I have I help kids with their reading, I babysit, whatever. I've got goodwill by the barrowload - and we all do, here. It's currency.

The Mynas membership consists of pretty much everyone whose name could be called at the Reaping, so we're all the kids in town aged twelve to eighteen from mining families. Our older siblings are members too, and the leadership is drawn from amongst their ranks. It's no point having anyone younger in important roles because they could be called to the Games and that will be the end of them. Most of us congregate around town at night and hang out, much to the disapproval of our parents. Having said that, our parents annually face the possibility of losing us. They're always having to choose between either letting us have some freedom while we can enjoy it, or keeping us close while we're still alive.

I'm fifteen, and quiet. Sometimes I go to the bonfire nights, or the parties in warehouses or whatever, but I keep to myself a lot as well. The explosion that killed off my father deadened something in me at the same time. I'm not much of a party-goer.

There's a guy whose father died in the same accident mine did, and I see him everywhere. A few years ago I figured out a way through the fence surrounding our town out into the woods, and I found him out there hunting for game just like I was. From that day we embarked on a cautious friendship. I was only eleven. Once I got into the Mynas I discovered he was in the higher ranks, and he was responsible for ensuring that whatever resources were held amongst the collective were distributed amongst the collective. He's fierce and adamant about all of us sharing whatever we can.

His name is Gale Hawthorne.

So various Mynas meet pretty much every night - not all of us, just whoever can get away, and we talk and roam, and we go to the Hob or wherever. Most days I see Gale because he and I hunt together, and we have this partnership that's co-operative and almost silent, as if we share instincts. Out in the woods it's just him and me with no delineation between boy-girl, or older-younger. Each of us does what we're most skilled at, and we divide the spoils evenly. But back in town, by the light of the fires from the barrels on the street corners, or from the smelly, oil-lanterns in the market, we act like we barely know each other. I don't know why - well, perhaps I do.

Gale is very handsome. On any night of any week there are girls looking longingly at him, and girls looking frustratedly. His and my association is a tight little capsule, existing as friendship in the woods while we're shooting arrows and setting traps, skinning and gutting our catches. It lasts while we're gathering edible leaves and wild tubers, along with poisonous seeds and berries that lose their toxicity when cooked. Back in the market when we've gone to sell the day's spoils, he's different. Not the Gale in the woods anymore. He wears a lazy smile when he looks at girls, and he's never looked at me like that. I wouldn't know what to do, anyway, besides punching him in the face.

I've never mentioned any of this to him, because that's not the way we are. On the one hand, I can tell him anything. On the other, I can't. An invisible barrier stretches taut and impenetrable between us, though I'd trust him with my life.

But anyway, there's another thing. It's why I keep to myself. It's why I've had to work so hard to make connections with other people. It's why things have been difficult for our family particularly, even though most households around here have lost someone due to the lethal nature of mining work.

I'm not a pureblood. You wouldn't know it to look at me, because I have my father's coloring. I have dark hair and a permanent tan, and eyes one of the countless shades of grey that all the miner families have in common. But my mother - she's from the merchant class. She has silken, flaxen, sunlight hair and her complexion is like fresh cream. My mother is different, and most days I consider her beautiful. She's beautiful because she bequeathed her hair and skin to my sister Primrose, and to me Prim is the most precious thing in this world. Sometimes I wish that my mother's genes hadn't marked my sister out the way they have, because people have always stared at her in awe, and once she is a little older, they will stare at her with something else. Although, if she's anything like me as a teenager, she won't fill out at all. I'm the same shape as a skinny boy - underfed and straight up and down.

Things have been better in terms of our food supply since I started hunting with Gale - we have protein regularly, and all sorts of greens that I collect in the woods, so maybe Prim has a better chance of gaining height and developing than I did. Years of malnutrition have stunted me, I'm sure of it. It can't be genetics, because my mother is tall and curved, and my father was tall and well-built. I'm so self-conscious about my appearance that I rarely smile, not wanting to appear friendly and have people pay me any attention. This is what I'm like at school, anyway. In the woods with Gale, it's different. Everything's different. I even have moments when I forget about the poverty and the hunger and the injustice and the arbitrary cruelty of the cards some of us have been dealt. I step outside of all of it, and just feel the wind, smell the greenery and life all around, hearing birdsong, and leaves whispering in trees. Gale is always a part of these moments. When I ever picture freedom, _if _I ever picture freedom, Gale is with me.

On my sixteenth birthday I'm at school, and freedom is an impossibility until four o'clock in the afternoon. The day stretches out far too long, and I'm really embarrassed at the constant greetings and well-wishes from everyone. Yes, it's my birthday - so what?

There's a bit of sniggering from some of the boys, as there always is when someone turns sixteen. It's the legal age you can have sex, although nobody takes any notice. Some of the kids have already been at it for years, and as for me, I can't see that I'll ever bother. More people that you could ever keep track of have been forced into marriages they didn't want because their urges got the better of them, and the girl ended up pregnant. Of course, the ones under sixteen didn't end up married - they ended up gone. One sniff of an underage pregnancy and the Peacekeepers are knocking on doors, guns at the ready, looking for a boy to arrest. Neither the boys, nor the girls, nor the babies ever come back. That will never happen to me.

I'm surprised though, in fact staggered, when one of the boys unexpectedly hands me a package. He's Peeta Mellark, the baker's son, and a Merc. Years ago, when I was wandering in the night like a wild thing, starving and desperate, he literally saved my life. He'd been sent out to his backyard to feed the pigs and he saw me there, skulking in the shadows. He went back inside and returned with bread, which he threw to me. Since then, I've seen him around, but he's a Merc. It's not as though I can speak to him. I indicated my thanks to him with a nod after the incident and he acknowledged with one that he understood, and that's been it, until now. Five years later he's giving me something! I don't know why he would, and there'll be hell to pay if anyone finds out. The package goes straight into the bottom of my satchel, and that's where it stays, unopened.

Later, I escape with relief and Gale and I have had a good afternoon. I shoot a brace of groundbirds, fat and tasty, to trade at the Hob. There were eggs in their nest for us to take home, and we've found wild sweet potato and plenty of cress and sorrel. Gale's snared several chipmunks, which break my heart to catch, and he's picked handfuls of greens as well. We were lucky enough to find a dewberry vine, but I've told him to take all the berries himself since the last time we discovered any he insisted that I have them.

We're sitting at one of our favorite spots - some high ground that overlooks the lake, although there are are so many trees that you can only just glimpse the warmth and glitter of its blue through their foliage. He's trying to insist with the fruit again today.

"It's your birthday, isn't it? You should have a treat," he says.

"Oh, I've been getting told all day what sort of a treat I should get," I reply drily.

"What?" he asks, sounding almost angry.

"I don't have to say it, do I? I'm sure you can guess."

"If anyone's been disrespecting you..." he starts, and he's suddenly a little tense. We were relaxed and calm and almost happy, and I regret mentioning it.

"No, it was nothing. Really," I assure him.

"Who said things? Were they Mynas?"

Gale has such authority that if I name names, there will definitely be repercussions. The boys were being jerkish, sure, but none of them were actually offensive, just ridiculous. I don't want any of them in trouble on my account.

"It was all fine," I insist. "Well, one thing was a bit weird. Someone gave me a parcel. A Merc boy."

I was trying to throw him off the idea of using the chain of command to mete out consequences to any of the Mynas, and it certainly worked, although not quite the way I expected.

"What did he give you? Hand it back," he says immediately.

"I didn't open it, I don't know," I admit.

"Well, return it tomorrow. You can't take anything from him. Who was he?"

Gale can't do anything to any of the Mercs, so it can't hurt to tell him. Can it?

"Peeta Mellark," I answer.

Gale's eyes narrow. "I'll pay him a visit, Katniss, and he won't bother you again."

"Gale, he hasn't bothered me. He didn't even say anything. He just handed me this paper bag, and I'm not worried about it, and you don't need to be either."

With a heavy sigh, and a furrowed brow, Gale turns to me.

"Don't you understand, Katniss? He's given you something. He expects an exchange. He knows your family's situation - he knows you have nothing to give in return. Except - "

Bewildered, I stare at him. "Except what?"

Gale looks away now, gritting his teeth. "God, you're young!" he says. "Sixteen, and you don't know a thing."

The realization of what he means sinks in, and I think back to Peeta Mellark, and what I've known of him. Quiet, sturdy, hardworking. Always surrounded by a group, he's popular, although what he's done to earn his popularity, I don't know. Am I getting the bill for what happened all those years ago? Is he charging me for two loaves of bread now that I'm sixteen? Surely not.

"You're wrong, Gale. It isn't like that. _He's _not like that. He's never even looked at me, and he's not looking now. And anyway - they were all joking today, no-one was serious. No guy wants me. I look like a boy."

Still facing away, Gale draws another deep breath. "You've heard that saying, Katniss, about guys only being interested in one thing? It's true. You've got no idea. And don't underestimate yourself. And don't _over_estimate them."

"But _you're_ not like that!" I protest.

Gale surges to his feet, snatching his bag up and glaring into the distance like he's looking for a fight to have.

"Time we went, Catnip," he mutters, setting off leaving me with no option but to follow.

For years now, Gale has been endlessly patient with me. He was far more skilled a hunter than I was when we met, and he didn't have to pair up with me at all. He could have just gone on his merry way, getting the best of the game and leaving me to pick dandelion leaves and nasturtium, but he let me slow his pace, he let me set traps that didn't snare anything, and he never criticized. It probably helped that I was an accurate shot, able to bring down a hare quickly and neatly, which meant that I wasn't entirely useless, but Gale taught me a lot. We've never exchanged cross words, so I'm at a loss as to why he's speeding away from me so determinedly, while I struggle to catch up as his long legs stride so much more quickly than my shorter ones.

On the other side of the fence though, he's waiting for me. We always cross in separate places, just in case. If one of us is ever caught, we can maintain that we're on our own. We meet well away from the perimeter, amongst the shadows and dark of an industrial complex that has no external lighting at night. The Peacekeepers don't patrol there, since the place is avoided by locals.

Gale and I communicate in the dark by a series of insect noises we imitate, so that we can find another. I turn to the chirruping sound of a cricket, and he's there, in the absolute black.

I'm annoyed that he leapt to a stupid conclusion about Peeta. I'm annoyed that he ran out on me. I'm annoyed, period. He has never been this way before - at first we were uneasy with each other, sure, but once the trust grew, there has been a camaraderie between us. I rely on it, I need it. Knowing he's around gets me through the day, and the night.

"Gale," I hiss quietly, knowing by his scent in this place that smells of nothing but concrete and dust that he's near, "You're wrong about Peeta Mellark."

"Katniss," his whisper comes back, "I'm not. But you're wrong about me."

He's close enough that I can feel the tiny heat of his breath on my cheek.

"What do you mean?" I ask him.

"Come on. Let's go. I don't want to talk about it now. Let's get rid of this stuff, and get you home."

Without waiting for my reply he's gone again, with me stomping angrily behind, until we get to the Hob.

I'm in no mood to barter, or to banter for that matter, though here talk comes more easily to me than it does at school. I'm not the surly Half-blood here, because here everyone has a story and secrets, and darkness. I'm the youngest person who ever comes through the door, and other regulars here have lived lifetimes and nightmares. They're walking ghosts. People are missing teeth, they're missing fingers and even limbs, but what they've got in common is that they're all outcast, to one degree or another, and they're all survivors. So am I, at my tender age. They've got scars, they've got memories, and they know me for one of their own. This is the one place I smile, apart from at home when I'm with Prim.

Tonight I trade the groundbirds quickly, for oil and soap and flour. Gale is far off at the other side of the room, busy, and I wander idly, waiting for him.

"Hey, Katniss Everdeen," a voice says, as a hand cups my shoulder.

"Congratulations are in order. I hear you had a birthday today," he continues, and it's one of the Mynas - one who's an actual miner, being over twenty. I know him. His name is Simeon Deakin and he's in the leadership. He and I have been around one another quite often, but never really spoken. Apparently we're speaking now - now that I'm sixteen.

"Are you celebrating?" he asks. "Let me get you a drink. There's no need for you to be alone on your birthday."

Before he can say anything else, Gale has arrived out of nowhere and has him by the arm.

"She's not alone, Deakin," he says in a low tone.

"She looks alone to me, Hawthorne," Simeon answers. "By the way, Angelica is looking for you. And so is Ava. Why don't I look after Katniss, and you look after your girlfriends?"

Gale swears, though he lets Simeon go.

"Katniss was just leaving," he states, "and so was I. Why don't you offer that drink to Angelica and Ava?"

I just don't have anything to say as Gale ushers me out of there. Simeon has never given me the time of day before, he's never even noticed me. That's one thing. And I know Angelica and Ava. Oh - do I know them. They're two of the girls I've seen Gale smiling at and talking with. They're both big and buxom, with flaring hips, and generous thighs you can see outlined beneath the thin floral cotton of the dresses they wear. They're not skinny waifs who stubbornly refuse to appear in anything but trousers. They both laugh heartily and loudly and let their long hair drape over their shoulders and flow down over their bosoms, they don't scrape it back so that it doesn't get in the way of their hand-to-eye co-ordination.

Well, Gale can walk me home as he always does, and then he can do whatever he wants, which is none of my business.

I've had enough of today anyway. Birthdays are nothing but an ordeal, and this has been the worst so far. The one good thing about them is that I only have two more before I'm out of the running for the Games.

Peeta's gift sits at home in the bedroom I share with Prim, and I'll return it to him tomorrow without knowing what it is, and I won't care. I'll avoid Simeon Deakin, and I won't care. As for Gale - I don't know why he's been the way he has today, but if it's the beginning of the end with him I'll just have to face it, like I've faced everything else. Prim is the one who's important to me. Everyone but her can fall by the wayside, and I'll carry on, for Prim.

And what Gale has said - about guys only being interested in sex? Well, fine. Rumor has it that's what Angelica and Ava are interested in, too. Good for the lot of them.

"See you tomorrow?" I say distantly, at my front door.

"Catnip - " he begins, and he sounds hesitant. It's uncharacteristic.

I open the door, not giving him a chance to start. I want to see my sister, and have a nice dinner, and then sleep until it is this day no more.

"Wait. I have something for you," Gale says. In his hand is a ribbon, though the streetlights are very poor and I can't see the color.

"I though you might like it. I thought it would suit you."

I take his offering.

"Thank you."

"Happy birthday."

"Thank you."

"Can we talk tomorrow?"

What a strange evening. He has never asked to talk to me before. He and I have unspoken, unconditional permission to talk.

"Yes," I answer slowly, and he's gone. Back to the Hob? How would I know?

.

.

.

I haven't even gone through this and checked it. I will over the next few days, though. If you see any glaring mistakes, let me know. Thanks.


	2. Chapter 2

_I don't own these characters, mostly. I did make up Simeon Deakin._

**The Brightest Thing They've Ever Seen**

Ch 2

Inside Prim's waiting, bouncing with excitement, wanting a special night.

When my father was still with us, we had a tradition of cake-making for anniversaries and special days, but there won't be such a thing for this occasion because we don't have the means to come by the ingredients. Sugar and butter are both luxuries, not necessities, so I never buy or trade for them. However we have some dried duckmeat that we have been saving, and my mother has made a casserole, with onions and beans and plenty of fragrant herbs. She quickly assembles a salad with some of the plants I've gathered this afternoon, and adds a little oil and onion flower. The aroma wafting through the house from the kitchen makes me feel weak with pleasure and hunger.

"Oh, Katniss, happy, happy birthday!" Prim sings, dancing around the kitchen, and her delight in the evening is tossed on waves through the air for me to catch. I dance too, and even our mother is smiling as we sing. Dinner is delicious, so fragrant and filling, and after we've cleaned up, we move to our small living room, Prim still joyous.

"Here, Katniss, here - this is my gift for you!" she almost squeals. In her hand is a scroll, which I unroll, wonderingly. It's a portrait in colored pencils, of our family. Our family before the disaster. The four of us, happy and complete, unknowing of the tragedy that was to befall. Oh, Prim, you optimist, you happy girl. She's so artistic, so clever, so lovely. My heart could burst with gratitude. It could split all the way open with love. I hug her.

"Katniss, I love you, my precious, splendid, fierce daughter. Not quite a woman, yet no longer a child. I wish your father could have seen this day. He would be so proud," my mother says, which is a lot for her. "_I'm_ proud, Katniss. You've held us together, with your strength and your courage. You have all my love, always."

She hands me a book, which I open. There's a date on the first page, and a drawing, in ink, of a dandelion. The date is years ago. Five years, to be exact. It's the date that Peeta Mellark gave me the burned bread. It's also the day that I realized I could feed our family, when I picked dandelion leaves and brought them home. Turning the pages, I am silent. The book is a compendium of edible and medicinal plants, and is meticulously illustrated. It's not printed. Every single page has been drawn by hand. I stare up at her, blinking in confusion.

"Did you do this?" I ask.

Eyes full of tears, she nods. It must have taken her years. My mother gets the second hug of the night, and then Prim joins in, and the three of us, the Everdeen women, are crying like whatever, holding each other and smiling through tears. Despite the ever-present sadness, this is the happiest I've been since that dreadful day we got the news about my father.

Prim is the one who breaks away first, saying, "Hey, Katniss, what about that gift you left on the dresser? In the bedroom?"

She's disappeared before I can protest, and skipping back into the room, she's carrying the parcel Peeta gave me at school.

"Prim, wait - " I caution, but she's as curious as a cat, and she's opened the top of the bag and peered into it.

"Oh, Katniss - look!" she exclaims, her delicate hand lifting out a perfect, tiny, tiered cake. When I say tiny, it's easily big enough for three people to have a slice each. It's iced - and the icing is decorated with an accurate, beautiful, painstaking rendition of the katniss flower. Oh.

My mother's cool, even gaze flickers to me, her question asked within it before her mouth even opens to speak.

"Peeta Mellark," I answer.

"Mellark?" she repeats. "You've never mentioned him. Is he a friend of yours?"

"No. Not at all. I've never even spoken to him," I admit. "He's the baker's son."

"I know. Katniss, he's put a lot of work into this."

I am saved from responding by Prim, squirming in her chair. "I wish we could keep it as well as eat it," she says wistfully.

"We can't," my mother says. "It won't last. That looks like fresh cream."

She bustles away, collecting a knife, together with plates and the little silver forks we never use. The flower is cut up within moments, no more than a memory as the sponge dissolves in our mouths, lighter than ether. Prim and I have never eaten anything so - so, I don't have words for it. The taste is a fleeting and blissful experience that afterwards leaves me sorrowful. Are life's pleasures so transitory?

Once Prim's in bed, my mother says, "Peeta must be about your age, Katniss. Is he in your class?"

"Yes."

"Do you ever sing at school?"

The irrelevance between one question and the other confounds me.

"No."

"Hmm. You have a lovely voice you know, Katniss. I would like for you to sing more, if you were ever inclined to."

She's off on a memory trip, I think, although how she got there I have no idea. I guess she's thinking about my father, who sang all the day long when he wasn't toiling away down a shaft getting so dirty that the black rubbed off on my sister and me when he got home and we hugged him. His songs filled the house - our girlish voices raised alongside in harmony and counterpoint when he wasn't slaving deep in a bottomless black hole working towards the day his body would be so badly damaged and torn by an explosion that his family wouldn't be permitted to see it.

During a moment while my mother has her back to me, I take Gale's ribbon from the pocket I'd tucked it into, curious to know the color. Green. Ribbon is such frippery, so lacking in usefulness. Its prettiness in no way justifies its costliness. Giving me something frivolous is very unlike Gale. Knowing green is my favorite color without my ever having mentioned it _is _very like Gale. He knows me better than I know myself. Why has he given me this gift? Why _any_ gift? My fingers are sure as I shake out my braid, then twine it again, ribbon included. I'm not the bow type, so I secure the ends in a knot. To tell the truth, without any need to dwell on it, I understand how Gale has chosen the perfect color. Green is for the woods, which for him and me is the nearest we get to peace and tranquility and liberation. Green symbolizes life and growth, which should be our birthright, but which the Capitol denies all of us unless it is in service to them. And to give me something that binds? It's because I couldn't shoot with hair in my face.

Gale knows me so well. His gift isn't frivolous at all. It's useful. It's also thoughtful and personal, reminding me perfectly of him - and of the hours we share.

The fact that no-one but he and I would understand the significance of it is proven when my mother returns to the table and notices my newly-done hair.

"Pretty green," she comments. "Where did that come from?"

"Gale Hawthorn."

She tries to smile. "_Two_ boys giving you gifts? Spoiled for choice, Katniss?"

"Not really," I mumble, knowing that she's wishing my father was here. Five years gone, and we love him and miss him so. He would have teased me and laughed, but my mother doesn't have that sort of humor. She teases me and doesn't know where to go next with it. Instead she brushes my cheek lightly with her fingertips.

"Years ago I had two boys interested in me," she says, dreamily. "I only ever had one choice, though."

Her last comment must refer to my father. "Who was the other one?" I ask, astonished, but she shrugs, and returns to tidying the room.

I lie awake long after I've gotten into my little trundle next to Prim, who sleeps on a proper mattress. She has a tendency to spread herself in the night, limbs outstretched like a flying squirrel aloft. I used to have that bed, until the nightmares came after my father died. Hearing my whimpers in the long nights Prim would creep in with me, only to fall into tortured sleep with her flailing arms bashing me, and her running feet kicking me. So she had the nightmares too, though in the mornings she couldn't recount them. I kept mine to myself, not wanting to distress my dwindled family any further than father-loss and husband-loss had already distressed them. These days, or I should say these nights, I'm next to Prim, curled into myself as if my back's armored, as if that will save me from what might come.

We don't know what _will_ come. If we did - what would we do? Would it make any difference anyway? I don't know if you can cheat fate, or interfere with its course - I don't know if fate will let you. Around here it can only be assumed that fate is either plain wicked, or simply doesn't care. Each of those is as bad as the other in my book.

My thoughts are occupied too with wondering about my mother's remark. I haven't a clue who she could have meant.

The next day I don't go looking for Peeta, because that would be noticed and remarked upon, but when I see him I thank him for the cake. He nods.

"I hope you enjoyed it."

"Yes, I did. We all did. It was very nice."

"Good."

"Did you do the icing yourself?"

"Yes."

"Thank you," I repeat.

It's a ridiculous conversation, since I neither know how to act around boys, or Mercs. I'm impressed but I haven't the skill or confidence to articulate it. Peeta's not doing too well either. The silence stretches too long between us as does the not-quite-looking at one another.

"Well..."

Gale wants to talk to me today, so I can't just stand around.

However, I don't speak to Gale. He's not in our spot, though I wait. When he hasn't turned up in half an hour I carry on by myself, checking the snares and visiting our usual spots for vegetables, nuts, seeds and anything else. If he hasn't come it'll be because there's some problem, so I need to get together food for his family as well. That's a deal we have with one another. There are five Hawthornes, three of whom are boys, which means he always needs more than I do. His brothers are big, like he is, and they need a lot of fuel to keep them going.

I stay out longer than normal, but I really need to get something substantial to take around to Hazelle. Just as it's starting to get too dark, my persistence is rewarded when a rustle nearby indicates something large in the undergrowth. I notch an arrow quickly, letting it fly. A young rabbit tries to dart out of the bushes, but my arrow has pierced its haunch. I snap its neck quickly, recovering the arrow and wiping it before putting the carcass in my bag. With plenty of vegetables, this will make a hearty stew.

Back in town I don't bother with the Hob as I usually would, instead going straight to the Hawthorne house.

Hazelle looks tired but her eyes light a little seeing the weight in my sack.

"Thank you," she nods, ushering me safely inside so that we're not seen. Hunting is punishable by whipping, and we've seen this cruel punishment meted out on more than one occasion to some unfortunate who was only trying to feed his family. Long ago I reached the conclusion that the people in the Capitol are stupid, keeping us half-starved and expecting loyalty and hard work in return. They're lucky no-one rebels, although on the other hand perhaps keeping us all half-starved is a strategy so that they retain their position. We can't put up any resistance if we're too malnourished to muster the energy.

"Where's Gale?" I ask on the way to the kitchen, after Hazelle has offered me a cup of tea.

"One of the men on his crew had part of his roof fall in yesterday. Gale and the others are helping fix it. I'll tell him you were here."

He'll know anyway, by what's in his dinner bowl. I thank Hazelle for the tea which is watery and weak, but better than the tea a lot of people have, because at least Gale and I bring leaves from the woods and our mothers dry them on sunny spots on the floors of upstairs rooms where patrolling Peacekeepers don't see them. As I've said, the consequences of any illegal behavior are severe. I've never seen a girl whipped, and I wouldn't want to. The men I've witnessed getting a flogging were rendered unconscious by it.

The talk at home is of the collapsed roof as well, since two children were hurt, and they were brought to my mother for treatment. Luckily it was no worse than cuts and scrapes, for which she has very effective ointments. She'd treated someone else this morning who'd had an accident with a rather more serious outcome - a boy with his arm broken in three places.

"Edan Eade - you know him, Katniss, from the potter's shop. His arm was a terrible mess - poor thing. He's in a lot of pain. I'm not even sure it will heal properly, although I set it as best I could. I suspect he'll never regain the full use of it."

Yes, I know him, of course. He's fourteen, small for his age, a shy boy who jumps at his own shadow. Even if he's a Merc, I'm sorry that he's hurt.

"What happened?" I ask.

"A table of clay tureens collapsed, and he was knocked underneath some of them. You won't be seeing him in school for a few days."

As it happens I don't see Gale for a few days either as the roof repairs take longer than expected. Once the men get home after the mines it's late, so they don't have a lot of time to climb up ladders and lever beams into place, never mind mailing sheets of tin onto frames. I'm missing Gale and I'm foraging for his family as well as mine, going to the Hob alone to trade and barter. It's all right there, Greasy Sae always keeps an eye on me, and she rules the roost. If anyone bothered me they'd have her to reckon with, and she'd have no hesitation whatsoever in throwing a chopping knife or a heavy iron soup ladle at anyone's head.

After the first night, Greasy Sae is not the only one looking out for me.

"Huntress," a voice murmurs, belonging to none other than Simeon Deakin. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not telling any Peacekeepers what you've been getting up to. You're safe in here."

I feel anything but safe, with Simeon towering over me, tall as Gale, and as unknown as Gale is familiar. But Greasy Sae gives me a nod when I look questioningly at her, so I allow Simeon to accompany me when I walk around to do business. People know me, they know my situation and they knew my father, but being hungry and feeling hopeless can lead to desperate behavior. Although I carry a very sharp knife, I wouldn't want to have to use it on anyone, and having Simeon alongside means no-one attempts to trifle with me, or to strike deals that are completely unfair. I can only guess Gale warned him off saying anything provocative to me, because he doesn't make any attempt at the flirting he showed the night of my birthday. That's a relief, since I really wouldn't know how to handle it. My knife might get an outing after all.

But Simeon turns out to be a gentle giant, and never says anything untoward. Over the next few days he meets me at the warehouse complex, is a discreet watcher during my business transactions at the Hob, and strolls home with me. His temperament is completely different to Gale's - more sunny, and optimistic. Simeon can find things to laugh at, and he likes to laugh at me. He comes up with different nicknames every day - Squirrel-Girl, or Tree-Spirit or Smiley. This last is his favorite, as he thinks it is the funniest. It's the least apt.

"Once Gale comes back you know I won't be allowed to keep you company like this anymore, Smiley," he says after a week or so. "Perhaps you could tell him to build another roof."

I give him a little pouch of chestnuts and I don't reply. Somehow I know he's right about Gale, but it's not because Gale harbors romantic feelings for me and would be jealous. It's because of the bond he and I have, risen out of our shared history, that only has room for two.

Sure enough, once the damaged house is airtight and watertight again, Gale is out in the woods, waiting at our usual spot. When I mention Simeon, Gale shrugs and says, "He's a good enough guy, but he's probably got plenty to do in the evenings."

And sure enough, Simeon's not around much any more. Ava and Angelina don't seem to be making guest appearances either, as Gale and I fall comfortably back into to our old routines.

The comfort, such as it is, doesn't last long. The Reaping is upon us.

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The Hunger Games themselves are upon us. Any day now.


	3. Chapter 3

_I don't own any recognizable characters, but there are a couple of OC's._

**The Brightest Thing They've Ever Seen**

Ch 3

Every year, it's the same. Dread gnaws at all of us in the Seam, Mynas and Mercs alike. Every year two of us are taken, never to return. Our only victor, Haymitch Abernethy, is more of a shambles each year than the last. I don't know how he hasn't died of liver failure, he is such a drunkard. His role is to help the Tributes, but he can't even help himself, barely standing up, staggering around and shouting nonsense. He's a laughing stock, although not here in District Twelve. In District Twelve he might as well carry a scythe to decapitate our Tributes before they leave for the Capitol, to save them their murder by someone else's children, since their deaths are inevitable.

The day of the Reaping, we all assemble, dressed as though we're attending a party, aware that for moments, all of Panem will be watching us. The moments that it takes for Effie Trinket, the bubbly and inane announcer of the yearly death sentence, to draw a ticket from each glass bowl. One girl, one boy. Then as she shrieks and giggles announcing the names, our glorious nation gets to see the crowd reactions and the luckless contenders, and the cameras move on to the next district.

We all try to act normal around Reaping time, but nobody can. You can't cheat the draw, or buy your way out, or evade it in any way. And every year, when it's not you, you half-sigh with relief, until the realization hits you that someone you know is going to die, violently and painfully. And you hate, _hate_ the system that forces this cruelty on all of us. It's a cold, hard, abiding hatred. It's in our bones, like the cold, and the hunger. We in the Seam hate truly and absolutely. Gale and I speak about this often - and sometimes we plan wars. We organize armies, we come up with strategies, we discuss battle plans. But we are two, only two. Probably many others feel the way we do, but there are Peacekeepers about everywhere, and you never know who amongst your own may be a spy. People have gone missing here, and then their neighbors or relatives have suddenly seemed to have half a dozen hens, or a hutch full of rabbits. We can only talk about our subversive ideas out in the woods.

"You know, Catnip, there are rumors of a breakaway community," Gale said once.

"What rumors? What community?"

"It's hidden. The Capitol has vast resources, but they can't be everywhere. Their empire is hugely expensive to run. They simply can't see into every valley and forest, and they don't have surveillance underground. I've heard stories that there are hundreds of people living in caves and tunnels, arming themselves, training, and when they're ready they're going to break out and there'll be a rebellion."

"With what? What weapons will they have? How could they be strong enough?"

"When the time comes, they'll be strong enough. It might not be for years, but the longer it takes for the right moment, the stronger they'll be."

"And in the meantime we starve?"

"Yes. If we didn't starve - what would we fight for? It's the Capitol's downfall, their biggest mistake. If they treated us better by one degree - there wouldn't be the discontent. We'd be servants and not slaves. Do servants revolt? Why would they, when they're assured of meals and a bed, even if their hours are long? Catnip - inhumanity and injustice are the spurs to war."

I considered. "All right then, who are these people? How can we join them? How can we communicate with them?"

Gale never, never looked away from me when he spoke, but he looked away then.

"I don't know, Catnip. It's a rumor. Best not to speak of it."

In the town square, on Reaping day, I wish the rumored revolutionaries were real, and that they'd descend from the sky in a fury, rounding up all the Peacekeepers and everybody else from the Capitol, all the officials who uphold the oppressive laws. Everyone who allows most of a nation to be downtrodden and abject, in the service of those who would be kings. I wish every year that the Reaping wouldn't happen, and the Hunger Games themselves would be abolished to the memories of those here now. Children born hereafter would never have to know such an atrocity was forced upon those who lived before them.

Probably most of the other people crowded today into the square, surrounded by armed guards, and presided over by giant screens, feel exactly the same way I do. The absurd Effie Trinket is babbling away about glory and courage, and the chance for an ordinary person to become extraordinary. As if that's what happens. All that happens to an ordinary person in the Hunger Games is that they get to slaughter and be slaughtered by other ordinary people.

The crowd are shuffling nervously from foot to foot, coughing, sniffing, wanting to get back to their usual life, because hard though our lives are, every single day of them is better than this day.

Up on stage our mayor, Mr Undersee, brings forward the glass ball containing slips of paper with names written on them, and we all freeze. Effie's gloved hand goes in, pulling out a ticket which she holds high.

Not one person who lives in this town is breathing. Not one.

"Pelalina Deakin!" trills Effie.

Oh no.

Two sounds occur simultaneously. I will never forget either of them. A woman's tortured howl, from the very bones of her heart, and a male shout of defiance and rage. Both contain pain so acute that the already still crowd is momentarily paralyzed, which makes what happens next all the more startling. Someone has thrown himself at the stage, bellowing.

"I volunteer! I volunteer!"

It's Simeon Deakin. Pelalina is his only sibling, a girl who came late in life to his parents, and who is known to all of us. Pelalina is sixteen years old, and always smiles. She has wide, vacant eyes, and doesn't understand anyone, or anything. It's thought that her mother was simply too old, and the egg that made Pelalina was past its prime, because her brain hasn't keep pace with her body in terms of growing. Mentally, Pelalina will never be more than four or five years old, and she probably doesn't actually know what the Hunger Games is about. Of all the Seam's children, the random selection of Pelalina Deakin is the most awful.

Even Effie looks uncomfortable when the cameras zoom in on the uncomprehending face of Pelalina. The image many, many times larger than reality, clearly shows the smiling child has no idea what is going on. Beside her, Mrs Deakin has wrapped her arms around her daughter and is wailing, even as Peacekeepers are doggedly prising her off.

Meanwhile, Simeon has hurtled up the stairs and is confronting Effie Trinket. Now the huge screens show him, shouting over and over that he volunteers. People are permitted to offer to replace someone whose name has been chosen, it's just very rare. And in this case, pointless, as Simeon is over twenty. He is too old.

He is hauled away by Peacekeepers as Effie tries to regain her composure, and poor little Pelalina is escorted up. Her distraught mother has disappeared, no doubt dragged away as well for disturbing the peace. The cameras pan around the residents of District Twelve, and every face shows disgust. Some look positively mutinous, and the cameras return quickly to Effie. This footage is being sent out live across our great nation, after all.

The disturbance has caused agitation amongst the watchers, and it's a while before things have calmed enough for Effie to draw the name of the second Tribute, the boy who will represent District Twelve in the Capitol's circus of murder. Quiet descends again as we wait for the announcement.

"Edan Eade," declares Effie, looking hopeful.

Not a soul cheers. Edan is located, marched to the stage, pushed up the steps, and positioned next to Effie. If people were upset about Pelalina, they're even more upset now. The boy before them has his right arm bandaged from wrist to shoulder. He won't be able to fight. The strange trio stand there - a simple girl, a broken boy, and a woman with curl upon curl of pink hair.

And then if the spectacle weren't already transfixing, Haymitch Abernethy appears. I've seen him many times, down at the Hob, drinking himself into a stupor and passing out where he falls since he shuns any efforts anyone might make to help him home. Not that he's liked. He's regarded as a complete failure as a mentor since he's too much of a craven alcoholic to ever be any use to our Tributes, who go off unprepared, untrained and doomed. He weaves over to Effie. She steps aside to avoid him and he turns to face the cameras, gesturing at the two children before him with a resigned shrug. Waving his arms a little more he appears about to say something grand, but he overbalances and topples. For a walking tragedy, he's unintentionally comedic.

But Panem has had enough of District Twelve, with its two contestants who are clearly not in the running. One last shot on the screens all around us show Pelalina, who has finally realized something is wrong, after watching her mother collapse and her brother taken away. She doesn't understand what is happening, but she's distressed. Edan has his one good arm around her, and his head bowed as he whispers something. The scene is so full of pathos that presumably even the heartless television crews of the Capitol can't take it. An image replaces it of previous victors showered in smiles and riches, cleansed of the blood they've shed - their own and others'. "May the odds be ever in your favor" flashes up on the screen, as though this is light-hearted, as though if you're triumphant you might win flowers, or a medal, or something equally inconsequential. It's not light-hearted, though. The Hunger Games means kill or be killed. And all of District Twelve, looking at the frail pairing of Pelalina and Edan, know that we've lost two more children.

In the hub-bub following the announcements, I've become separated from my family so I wander away, noting all the dazed and bleak expressions on faces around me. Mrs Deakin is probably under sedation right now, if not arrest. Simeon is probably in custody. If Prim's name were ever called I would be a combination of the two of them, I know it. Fighting off the grief and outrage, I'd throw myself forward, just as Simeon had. I'm appalled at the nightmareish fate awaiting Pelalina and Edan, but I'm so glad it wasn't me or Prim. Barely able to contain my feelings of relief, I return home and hug my sister fervently. My mother is doing the same, and they both hold me tightly.

Reaping Day is such a cause for festivity and celebration in the minds of our rulers in the Capitol that citizens neither have to work, or go to school. Straight after lunch I head to the woods, looking for Gale and ready to shoot something.

It's a couple of hours before he turns up, and he's - I don't know what he is. I've never seen him in this state. Remote, disconnected, pacing, frowning. Something is terribly wrong. It's a bad, bad day anyway, I know that, but Gale is scaring me.

"What is it? What's the matter?" I ask, hunting forgotten.

"Simeon, Pelalina, Edan," he answers distractedly. Leaves are crushed where he has trodden repeatedly over them. His breath is uneven.

"Catnip," he says finally. "Catnip."

I put a hand on his chest, trying to bring him to me, trying to make him focus, but when his gaze links with mine I see he is already focused. His mouth is grim, his jaw clenched.

"Remember I told you once about a rebel army who will stage an uprising and wage war on the Capitol? It wasn't a rumor, Catnip, it wasn't a story. They exist. And I'm leaving to join them."

"Leaving? But - when? How?"

"Today. Right now. I've just come to say goodbye to you and I'm going."

I shake my head.

"It can't be true, Gale, it isn't possible. An army like that couldn't be real. The Capitol would crush them. And anyway - who are they? Where are they? Who's told you about this?"

"I can't tell you anything, Catnip. Any knowledge about this would endanger you. You can't even say you've seen me."

My hand grips his shirt. He's deadly serious, although his words are scarcely believable.

"Simeon was arrested today, because he protested over Pelalina. It was all so chaotic in the square that only two Peacekeepers had hold of him, and he managed to get away. He's hiding out now, not far from here, waiting for me. He would have been executed if he hadn't made a run for it. And Catnip, I can't just stand by any more. Not after what happened at the Reaping. I can't watch and endure the injustice and face crawling around in the mines working so damn hard for someone else's prosperity and well-being, and scrounging around out here for blades of grass to feed my sister and brothers, and I can't do nothing while the Capitol takes our children and forcefeeds us televised footage of their murders."

"You'll be killed. Their weapons are too sophisticated. They're too strong."

"I'd rather go to war, and die fighting and defiant than die pitiable and starving. But Catnip, there are thousands of us. _Thousands_. Believe me. Nearly all the miners are involved, and we've been secretly training underground for years. _Decades_. In nearly all of the districts we have hundreds of supporters, and even in the Capitol itself. Our time will come, and it may be sooner than anyone suspects. Today may have been a catalyst. No-one watching those screens today could have been anything but appalled. Today was the Capitol's biggest mistake."

Hundreds? Thousands? How could so many people be hiding and storing weapons, and organizing themselves, without the Capitol knowing and crushing them?

"I don't know where you heard about this army from Gale, or who told you, but I just don't believe it," I say urgently. "Don't go running off after a dream that doesn't exist!"

Gale narrows his eyes and doesn't respond.

I don't want him to leave, but I know him too well to expect he'd change his mind about something just because I asked him to. I know how fiercely loyal he is, and I know how principled he is too. The only angle that I could possibly appeal to him on is his family.

"But what about Posy?" I ask. "The boys? They all depend on you."

"The miners have talked about this. They'll help. It's not like any of us has any spare food or money, but they'll do what they can. And Catnip - I know you will, too. I'm doing the right thing, going with Simeon and joining the rebels, and I wish I could take you with me, but then there would be two families without their providers, and things would just be too hard."

Suddenly I'm angry. Such a dispiriting, gut-wrenching day, and now my best friend tells me he's leaving. I could hit him. I could cry. Shaking with the effort it takes me not to do either doesn't mean I'm not about to do both.

"I'll come back," Gale says, and he folds his arms around me in a loose hug. I want to push him away at the same time as I want to hug him back and never let him out of my sight. He's going to be in terrible danger if he runs away. I have no idea how much the Capitol would be prepared to expend in terms of resources to chase him, but the fact that Simeon was arrested today and then escaped makes him a fugitive. If Gale goes too he will be guilty of aiding and abetting. All those offences warrant execution.

"You can't come back," I sigh. "You'd be shot on sight."

"I'll find a way, Catnip. Whether alone or with an army."

He has never held me before, but I don't feel uncomfortable in his arms, though I do feel consumed by sadness.

"Hey, you know on your birthday you got that present from the Merc guy - Peeta Mellark?" Gale asks suddenly, stepping back to regard me closely. "Did you give it back?"

"No," I admit. "Prim saw the package and got excited, so we opened it. It was cake."

"_Cake_?" Gale repeats. "Maybe - " he trails off, and whatever he was going to say doesn't come out. He appears to be biting his lip a little, staring into the distance.

"And what has happened with him since then?" he asks finally.

Frowning, I shake my head. "Nothing. He's a Merc. Sometimes we see each other across the schoolyard, or across the street, but nothing. I told you you were wrong."

"Hmm," Gale says, but he doesn't warn me again about Peeta. He doesn't tell me to stay away from him. Instead, he says stiffly, "Maybe if he's going to turn up now and again with gifts of cake, he's somebody to be friendly towards."

He's thinking ahead, thinking of the huge decrease in both food and income both our families will face with his departure. Incredibly, it occurs to me that he is telling me to accept advances from Peeta Mellark if they come with food attached. I'd be outraged if I could afford to be. Instead, I'm muted. I have two women and four children to think of, now. And myself besides.

Then I feel Gale's fingtertips at my chin, lifting my face. He's very close, tilting his head towards me. "I have to go. This isn't goodbye, but I don't know when I'll see you again. Take care of yourself, Catnip. Once the Peacekeepers know Simeon's disappeared and I have too, they'll tighten security. You'll have to be smarter."

Without a hint of what's to come, his mouth is on mine. I part my lips in surprise, and he molds his to me, moving closer, wrapping me in a close hug. I've never been kissed before and I have no idea how to respond, and this is Gale. Instinctually my arms lift around his shoulders, my fingers tangling in the hair at the back of his head, holding him. I'll keep holding him, keep kissing him if it will make him stay.

But Gale is freeing himself from my grip, drawing away, grey eyes staring and breath uneven.

"Next time," he says in a rough voice. "Next time, Catnip."

He turns away, as stealthy as we both are when we're hunting, sneaking up on game, and in a moment he's surrounded by trees. Soon after, the leaves and branches disturbed by his passage have stilled, and there is no trace of him. None but the trembling in my limbs and the lingering sensation on my lips.

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	4. Chapter 4

**The Brightest Thing They've Ever Seen**

Ch 4

Gale - gone? I can't process the idea at all. I'll go back to the Hob with what I've caught today, buy some things we need for the house, and get home to Prim and my mother. Tomorrow's a school day, then tomorrow afternoon I'll be back out here, in the woods where I feel safe and free, never mind the wild things. Treading silently side-by-side with Gale, the two of us communicating in nods and grins and eyebrow lifts so we don't disturb potential quarry.

I guess I never gave any thought to how things with me and Gale would be in the future - since the present was such a challenge that thinking beyond it was a distraction that could mean slipping up and making a fatal error. Besides, once I got to my teenage years and started noticing how much time other girls spent daydreaming about boys and kissing and all the rest of it, I knew I'd never marry, or have children. How could those girls overlook the heartless bar to motherhood that was the Hunger Games? How could any woman bear to give birth when her child would be subject to the Reaping? Not to mention the relentless hardship of day-to-day survival in the Seam. There was precious little joy in anyone's lives, and scant relief from the bleakness. All that gave my life meaning was Prim, and the only thing that could set my mind free for precious moments was the time I spent with Gale. Now one of those was finished.

Tributes have to leave for the Capitol almost straight away, but there is a brief time allowed for farewells and best wishes. I go to see Pelalina, who has been given paper and crayons by somebody and is sitting on the floor scribbling. The normally - or I should say _ab_normally - cheerful Effie Trinket is for once way out of her depth, and wobbles about the room on her high heels with plenty of chk-chking. Pelalina doesn't really respond, because Pelalina doesn't know how to act with strangers. When she sees me she lights up and hugs me, and she is famous around here for her hugs. They are disarming and heartfelt.

Although she's very vocal, Pelalina is for the most part unintelligible, but she is nonetheless able to say "Mama," in a questioning tone, seemingly unwilling for our hug to end. Her "_Mama_"s get progressively more plaintive until she's crying and can't be comforted. Effie sighs almost theatrically. There's no escaping the fact that Pelalina won't last five minutes in the Arena.

I visit Edan too, although I don't really know him. He's going to last about seven minutes. He can run but he won't be able to wield a weapon, or fight hand-to-hand.

"I wish I could help you, somehow," I tell him, and he turns eyes to me that are already dead.

"I wish I could help Pelalina," he says.

The two of them are whisked away amidst pomp and ceremony which fails to disguise how dreadful the whole thing is, and from then on all of us know we'll only ever see them again on screen.

Telling myself everything is at it was is the only way I get through the next few days. When my mother mentions worriedly she's heard Gale Hawthorne and Simeon Deakin are gone I shrug worriedly in response, unwilling to admit to knowing anything. Talk at school is of the missing pair, whether it's Mynas or Mercs doing the talking. Possibly some of the Mynas know the truth, but I'm not asking and they're not telling.

Gale was right about security being amped up. It's lucky over the years I've found more ways to get out past the perimeter than just climbing through the broken fence, because the day after Gale's departure the fence is fixed. It's good as new. The Seam has never seen such a reliable stream of electricity in all my life. There's a barely audible hum emitted by the wires that warns me they're live just before I try to duck under them one day, so I walk the mile or so west to where I know there's a fox burrow Gale and I enlarged a couple of years ago, just in case.

Whatever I find on my forays I split, which doesn't really leave much, considering it's only worth killing what I can carry. There's the Hawthornes to think of now, as well as the three hungry people of my immediate family. If we could all get away with eating once a week, we'd be fine. Help comes from from an unexpected quarter, though. Unexpected if you're as backwards as I am, in matters between boys and girls.

Peeta Mellark.

Gale foresaw it, and I didn't really give much credence to his words.

But Peeta and I have exchanged a few more glances and nods, not much more, when one day he approaches me at school during the lunchbreak. I've eaten nothing, because I gave what I had to Prim.

"Katniss?" he says. "Do you like cheese?"

I like everything edible, including things that would probably make him retch. Or perhaps I should say I don't have the luxury of thinking about whether I like things or not. You have to be wealthy to have tastes and preferences.

"Yes," I shrug.

"My mother gave me cheese scones today, but they make me cough so I can't really eat them. Would you like to have them?"

"You can't give me your lunch," I protest though I'm already salivating.

"I've already had something. It's okay. Really."

Pushing a little package wrapped in paper to me, he smiles shyly, pink cresting along his cheekbones. He's very pale, in direct contrast to me. He's more like Prim and our mother. I don't know why he's doing this unless it's what Gale said, but emptiness is clawing at my belly, threatening eruptions of sound. My hands have already taken it, and he's drawing away. To give his stupid scones back I'd have to throw them at him, so I take the package. When I'm sure no-one can see, I devour half of the contents, saving the rest to take home. The dough is light and salty and melting and gone.

Throughout the next while, time in Panem is measured in the countdown to the commencement of the Games. The Tribute's training sessions are broadcast all day, and we are so surrounded by screens that observation of them is inescapable.

Also inescapable is the knowledge that District Twelve's Tributes are simply the most hopeless ever to have been seen. The cameras even give up showing them after the first couple of days, because Pelalina, when presented with a sword, gazed confusedly at her reflection in it for a full half hour, turning it this way and that, puzzled by the distortion. Edan valiantly tried to execute a few slashing movements left-handed, but stopped and went to sit with Pelalina. The commentators couldn't come up with anything positive to say, and the coverage of District Twelve's contestants ceased. Watching their failure to engage was bad, but their following invisibility was worse.

Haymitch Abernethy is shown railing at the sky, shaking his fists, but we don't hear him, and his rant stops abruptly when the shot cuts to another mentor in another district. Rumblings of anger in the Seam are quiet but distinct, and the Peacekeepers become more present, if that were possible. Before all this their gun barrels pointed at the ground, now, it seems they all have one hand on the stock and one on the barrel, with the muzzle semi-raised, at the ready to be pointed.

There's an air of menace that wasn't expressed before. If we thought we had to be careful, things are monumentally worse. Everyone's on a hair-trigger, watching themselves, watching others. A step out of line, and you could be taken away.

The opening of the Games draws closer, and the atmosphere in the Seam is tenser. Mrs Deakin had been returned to her home for a while, but her distraught and inconsolable keening had split the night air for no more than a couple of nights before it stopped. Her house is empty now, the story being that relatives a few miles away have taken her in. The story is not believed, but no-one has voiced that disbelief, as the reprisals would be swift and punitive.

With ever more infrequent trips to the hunting grounds I'm still just managing to eke out a few extras for my family and the Hawthornes besides what my mother's meagre earnings will buy. There is goodwill towards me in the Hob, where Greasy Sae will give me a flask of soup to take home and share. My mother, Prim and I are not actually starving, but we're not far off it, now that there's just me trying to provide for two families, under conditions where I'm ever more wary of being caught.

And to my bafflement, there's still the baker's boy, the cake boy, the Merc Peeta, repeatedly trying to give me his lunch.

"Almond biscuits? Take them - I can't stand the taste," he says, handing me half a dozen, which I eye with suspicion. Why would his mother give him six biscuits for one day? I can't fathom it, although I still don't believe Gale was right. Peeta only ever looks at my face, and then in a reserved, almost nervous way. He doesn't look at my chest, not that there's anything there to look at, and he certainly doesn't look any lower. I've had those sorts of looks very occasionally from other boys, but there's no indication from Peeta that he even recognizes I'm female. Not understanding, I don't delve into it. The bakery treats are welcome.

When we're due for the Gamekeepers' scores as to how they rate the Tributes, again it's something none of us can avoid. It's not as though we've summoned up enthusiasm for this in the past, but this time around all of District Twelve probably wants to surge in a stampede to the Capitol and appeal to them to call the whole thing off. Or at least pull our contestants out. But no, we're forced by the grim-faced Peacekeepers encircling us, rifles primed to respond to unruliness. Captive in our vast square, we turn our faces up, and see what we wish we could prevent. Our vacant and doomed girl scores a zero, and our wounded boy scores a one. Our whole district will be trying to raise some money, trying to buy them anything that will give them any sort of chance, but all of us know there is no chance.

Disheartened, none of us can be sleeping easy in our beds tonight.

And in the morning - the opening ceremony. Again we're obligated to attend the public viewing, and again, it's unbearable. Chariots bear all twenty-four Tributes around a course in the Capitol, parading in front of the peacocks and birds of paradise, the ridiculously attired and decorated denizens of that corrupt world, who cheer with fervor. None of their children are called to participate. They can choose favorites based on whim, as none of the entrants are their sons or daughters, or nieces or nephews. The entire spectacle makes me want to smash something. My thoughts drift to Gale and Simeon, who I haven't let myself think of for weeks now. Where is their revolution? When is it? Bring it on, I think, coldly. Bring it. I'll fight with my bare hands.

Back at home, my mother, my sister and I are chilled, but we've no money for firewood. We're hungry too, despite all my efforts, and my mother's efforts, and the help that has been given to us by the miners. Everyone has their own family to feed, after all.

I think back to what Gale said about Peeta Mellark, and about Peeta expecting an exchange for giving me cake. Quite honestly, Peeta hasn't given me any indication that he wants anything from me. But then, maybe I just can't pick up those sorts of messages. When Gale had kissed me, I'd been surprised. There are probably men around who might give me food or money in return for - attention. I'm simply not bringing in enough food these days considering I'm giving four-sevenths of what I find to Hazelle Hawthorne.

To make matters critical, the next time I try to go to the woods I discover my little tunnel, hidden away under shrubs as it is, has been filled in. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I'm not desperate quite yet, but I need a solution if I can't hunt any more. I've no idea whether I can seduce Peeta into giving me more food, but I'm ready to try, cold-blooded as it is. I'd rather him than anyone else.

Food isn't the first thing on my mind though, because today is the first day of the Games. Yet again sirens summon everybody across Panem to wherever the meeting point is in their town, and the metres-high screens show us our fellow country-men and women wearing varying expressions of excitement and dread. All the District Twelve residents wear masks of bleakness, as Pelalina is now loved even by people who have spent their lives miles and hours away from here in other towns around other mines, and hadn't heard of her before the Reaping. Edan is loved, too, in the same way. In the way you love someone helpless who is lost to you.

The ominous toll of the opening gong sounds forth, and twenty-two Tributes up there broadcast across the very sky scramble off their starting plates, heading for the Cornucopia with its stash of goodies. Everything you could hope to wish for seems to be in there, as far as we can see - food, weapons, survival equipment. There are probably ponies and motorbikes. The fleetest tributes reach the golden horn in seconds, some of them arming themselves and shooting around them immediately. This must be what it's like in a shark frenzy - blood spilling, bodies tumbling. Not five minutes into the Hunger Games we've witnessed several deaths.

Amongst the drama and action, it's a while before the cameras pan back to sweep the empty plates, only to discover that one of them isn't empty. In fact, there are two figures on it. A little girl sitting down, shoulders hunched in the attitude of a stubborn toddler, and a boy bent over her, talking urgently. A shout spins him, and he rises, facing a trio of opponents who hold either knives or spears, threatening him. Edan seems to square his jaw, and he moves to place himself very deliberately in front of Pelalina. His message is clear - to shoot her they'll have to shoot him first. Nobody's going to have a problem with that, you could bet money on it, but to the astonishment of all of us watching, the other three Tributes lower their weapons without even communicating with one another. It's a tacit agreement, seemingly. Are they being merciful? I don't think so. It's kill or die here, but there's no glory in going for such easy targets. At this stage of the proceedings, the other three Tributes are too vain. By the time they've run off to explore or to find water or to find someone more worthy to aim at, Edan is crouched on the ground, still trying to persuade Pelalina to get up. She's started crying and won't budge.

Claudius Templesmith, the announcer whose voice has provided commentary to the Games footage for years now, starts babbling about weather conditions in the Arena, clearly uncomfortable about what just happened and not wanting to describe it. The cameras go off in search of something more exciting to aim at too. Prim's hand reaches for my mine, clutching tightly, and we're thinking the same thing, I'm positive. The same thing everyone else is thinking. After a day or two, unglamorous or not, Edan and Pelalina won't be considered beneath anybody's efforts. If they survive that long, given that there could be fires or floods or wild animals or _anything_, they'll be picked off by their opponents. That's the _point_.

People are permitted to leave the square now and we trail along homewards, eyes downcast, despondent. I pass Peeta, surrounded by a bunch of his Merc cronies. He separates himself from them, walking after me.

"Katniss?" he asks.

Prim and I stop.

"Are you a friend of the Deakin's?"

"Not really," I shrug. A few Seam people are watching us with a dull curiosity. Peeta and Prim so blond, me so dark. I look like the odd one out. "Simeon's the one I know the best."

"If you see Mrs Deakin - could you tell her - tell her - " his voice falters. "Just - I don't know. That people care..."

Cheeks reddened, Peeta looks down at his feet, kicking the ground a couple of times.

"I don't know if I'll see her. She was missing after the Reaping, and then she came back for a few days, but no-one's seen her since the Peacekeepers took her away again."

"_What?_" He's shocked.

"The assumption is that she was arrested for being a public menace. Grief's been declared illegal, but nobody bothered to tell us."

Now Peeta looks upset. _I_ feel upset, and really angry. It's pointless though. You might as well be angry at the sky. You can't change anything. Even if it's wrong, you can't change it.

I turn my back on him.

Later at home I'm thinking about this, and thinking about Gale. Gale _is_ trying to change it. He's become a soldier, a freedom fighter. A rebel. I'm those things in my heart, but he's turned feelings into action. Pelalina was the breaking point. How many people are in this revolutionary army? Could they possibly have the means to overthrow the Capitol?

My father used to sing, all the time. His voice was beautiful and true, a velvet stream flowing from his throat that made people turn and stare, made dour folk smile and made a hard day bearable. Most of his songs were sad, inexplicable, or even tragic, but he had one about whispering your wish to the dark sky. One wish on its own was a solitary thing, floating about looking for friends, but once it found friends it could shine and glow, becoming a tiny spark to illuminate the heavens. As a child, I loved the idea that the stars twinkling down were wishes made by all the children. Tonight, I wish they'd join in a force that could shake the world, shoot like a bolt of furious lightning and set fire to the Capitol, destroying all its corruption and cruelty, leaving meadows of starflowers.

The Games continue and by morning speakers are booming out the latest reports at a volume that can't be ignored. The images are beamed into our brains via the screens. You'd have to walk with eyes closed not to see them, thereby risking falling over in the uneven streets, tripping over cracks which don't get fixed. Even if you shut out the visuals, you can't shut out the sound.

Twelve contestants have died. Twelve families will never have their child come home again. A kind of listlessness settles over the town now that the death tolls are coming in, as they're more than we can bear. It's a foregone conclusion that the two names we dread hearing will be announced sooner rather than later.

Our lives, such as they are, go on. My mother had preserved some of the food I'd brought in over the last few weeks, and had dried some, but we're starting to run dangerously low. I visit Greasy Sae to tell her that I won't be bringing in game or anything much else to trade from now on. She grunts and nods, having heard from one or two others that since Simeon and Gale went the fence has been miraculously restored to full operation. That means less for all of us, Peacekeepers included, as I'd been keeping meat on their plates, too. What a twist. Their obedient implementation of rules they'd deliberately overlooked for years will result in them being penalized with growling stomachs.

The Mercs are never underfed. They even have the wasteful attitude of throwing food away, some of them. I've seen vegetables that could still have been eaten sitting in Merc garbage bins, chicken bones that haven't been picked clean, apples that have more red than brown showing on them. Scavenging through bins has never been something I turned my nose up at, but pickings are slim, with Seam folk other than me having the same idea. Peeta Mellark, Peeta Mellark, my footfalls tap out as I walk home. Heel _toe_, Pee-_ta_. Heel _toe_ Me-_llark_.

It's time.

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	5. Chapter 5

**The Brightest Thing They've Ever Seen**

Ch 5

Two great dramas are playing out right now, both life and death, though I'm only involved in one of them. I've got to give this everything, because the alternative is to march down to the Hob and put myself on offer. I've thought and thought of what else I could do and I've come up with fat nothing.

Gale's green ribbon hasn't left my hair since the night of my birthday, and I get my mother to braid it in again afresh in the morning, because if affirms life. Life is my goal, today and all the days after. Particularly Prim's life. If I can get the baker's boy to give me scones or cake or biscuits again, the largest portion will go to Prim. There is so much good in her, so much grace and hope. These virtues are in short supply in my character, but in hers they're boundless.

For Prim, I tell myself resolutely.

What I'm going to do has to seem genuine, because I want Peeta to fall for it. So at school, when the bell rings for hometime I look coyly at him, catching his eye then looking away, catching his eye again and smiling while playing with my hair. It's a move I've seen girls perform when they're trying to get a boy's attention. You'd think any boy with any brains would take it as evidence of a scalp problem, but perhaps most boys don't have any brains, since they seem to rush right on over to any girl flicking her hair around. However Peeta glances towards me, then appears to be getting on with the business of going home. Am I that unappealing? Obviously.

Frowning and sullen, in other words back to normal, I'm tying the straps of my backpack when I realize Peeta is at my shoulder.

"Do you need some help with that?" he offers.

"No," I snap, then hastily backpedal.

"Um, maybe. The buckle broke. My mother sewed the strap back on but I've got my sister's things as well because she's bringing other stuff home today, and I think the satchel is just too heavy..."

"Let me take it," he offers, tucking it easily under one arm. We're being watched, but he ignores the looks. It's broad daylight and a Merc is carrying a Myna's schoolbag! He stares steadfastly straight ahead, striding towards the poor side of town, and I lengthen my steps so I don't have to practically run to keep up. Oh, word will get around about this in no time. I'd envisaged some kind of discreet and private encounter with him, not that I'd let my thoughts go into any detail. Just - he seems to like me, I'll get him to think I like him too, and then... do what I have to do. Give him kisses? For food? Would that be enough?

Knowing I have no talent for small talk, I need to connect with him, somehow.

"So," I begin.

"So?"

"You must know a lot about baking."

"Quite a bit, yes."

There's a gap while I try to think of another brilliant comment.

"Will you be a baker when you finish at school?"

"I imagine so."

He's still staring straight ahead and it occurs to me that he's just as discomfited as I am. Despite seeing me around all his life he is only now discovering I am an imbecile. It may be a letdown.

"Are you a friend of the Eade's?"

He stops so abruptly I overtake him. "Yes, I am. I grew up with them. Edan's sister is my brother's girlfriend. Our families are very close."

That's when I realise Peeta is hurting the way other people here are hurting. Or at least, I guess that's when I actually acknowledge it. The merchants are better off than the miners until it comes to that great equalizer, the Reaping. Thanks, Capitol, for not discriminating. Although the playing field isn't exactly level, with the town kids as a rule enjoying better health than the Seam kids. And the Merc kids never have their names in more than once, the way the Mynas do. No, the odds have tended to be more in the favor of the Mercs. Until this time.

We're at the gate to the meagre front yard of my house now, and Peeta's unlikely to have ever been down this street. Dingy, cramped - it displays poverty almost proudly. He must be inwardly cringing.

I've run out of things to say anyway, and my attempts at coquettishness were a disaster. Subtlety and I do not have a working relationship. I'll need to go down to the Hob after all and lure someone outside and hope that my mother never finds out. I'll do it so that Prim never has to.

But Peeta seems in no hurry to get out of here.

"This is your house?" he asks, when I try to wrestle my bag from him. "I'd like to say hello to your mother. She makes a burns liniment that's very effective, you probably know. Burns are an occupational hazard for my family. Since I'm here, I'd like to pick up some more, and thank her."

"She's not home." I'm so bad at this. My mother and Prim are visiting attending a neighbor who is about to give birth. Prim's quite the nurse-in-training. They'll be ages. I should hustle Peeta inside and smile at him, or frown, or whatever gets the best results.

"You could come in and wait. She won't be long."

He nods, and then we're facing each other across the kitchen table. The place is clean, though very bare. He doesn't comment on the sparseness, though he can't fail to notice it. I wonder what his house is like - hearty flames dancing in the grate? Pictures on the walls, and curtains at the window; vases and ornaments and pretty things?

"Tea?" I offer, because thankfully, we still have some. I light a fire under the grate on the stove, and set water to boil in a saucepan. I light a lamp while I'm at it, and pretend that tea-making around here is complicated and takes a good deal of bustling about with my back to him.

Another awful thing about the Hunger Games is that the Capitol supplies televisions to all households, and the Capitol controls when those televisions are on. The set in our kitchen now blips and emits its blue light, and short of covering it with a cloth or turning it to face the wall, there's not much we can do. Peeta seems as reluctant as I am to see the latest statistics.

He looks morosely down at the table, saying, "You're sixteen, Katniss. Same as me. We're still in the running. Two more years until we're safe. But I know there's your sister, and she's only just become eligible. It's awful for you. You saw what Simeon Deakin did? I felt like doing the same thing, both times that that wretched Effie Trinket called out the names. But I couldn't. I just didn't have the courage."

He's miserable, for sure, but he can't possibly mean that. No-one would volunteer. Well, unless it was for someone who meant more to them than their own life. Like Simeon had for Pelalina. I'd do it for Prim, without hesitation. The thought brings me up short. Peeta said I only have two more years to go, but actually, counting Prim's years as well, I have six. The water is boiling by now, but still I open and close containers, taking a long while to get this tea happening.

"They punish us for something that happened seventy-four years ago. There's no-one even alive who took part in that uprising!" he continues. "I wish they'd stop the insanity. The inhumanity. We've all got the message."

"They _are_ insane. And inhuman. There's no other explanation."

Handing him a mug and spilling some of its contents, I narrowly miss scalding him. I remember my intention today was to flirt, but with the turn the conversation has taken, this just doesn't seem like a good time for an abrupt change of subject. Especially to something I'd be so clumsy with, like, "I think you're handsome and I'm keen on you. Can I have some bread?" Perhaps I should just sit on his knee? My mother used to sit on my father's knee and he'd grin and wrap himself around her, face nuzzling her neck. I just don't know how to turn the sombre mood around though, so I keep my distance and sit silently.

My lack of sparkling repartee doesn't brighten the general atmosphere, and my mother doesn't arrive. Peeta goes home after finishing his tea, leaving me wondering how I can manage things better the next time I see him. I guess I'll think of a few things to say tonight that will seem spontaneous, and try again tomorrow. Amazing how inspirational an empty stomach can be, and how available to someone it can make you feel.

The coverage we're all getting from the Arena is relentless and it dominates our lives, but astonishingly, the hammerblow we all expect on a daily basis doesn't arrive. Pelalina and Edan are still alive. They haven't left the cornucopia - they've simply set up camp inside it. They gathered the odds and ends that were left once the other tributes cleared out, and found enough food and water to keep them going to several days. None of the other tributes have returned to eliminate them. Edan even discovered armored clothing, and persuaded Pelalina into it, making a dressing-up game for her. As if the hearts of our society here in the mining district weren't already beyond repair, his refusal to leave her, and his devotion and kindness rend us anew. Pelalina can be very trying company, and it's not as though they can converse. She can barely speak.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Arena atrocities are committed in the name of survival for the sake of entertainment. Daily life in the Seam is as mundane as ever, while boys and girls we've never met are rendered corpses. Claudius Templesmith presides over the carnage, intoning the names of the newly dead while we sit in school scribbling sums on our tablets, or work at home mending clothes, sweeping floors, heating water so we can wash.

For my family, the food situation is almost dire. I managed to snare a pigeon in our yard a couple of days ago, and someone from Gale's mining team brought over a handful of potatoes the same day. I made use of everything, even keeping the water I boiled the potatoes in, for its starch. We've consumed everything from the garden that won't kill us. My mother is being brave and saying she'll sell her wedding ring, but I don't want to let her. There's so little she has left of my father, besides her two daughters - and anyway, no-one is going to have much money to give her for it. I've smiled winningly at Peeta, or at least I thought so, but despite blinking and swallowing like I've startled him, he hasn't given me food.

"I'm going into town," I announce the day after the flirting disaster. "To see if anyone needs any mending done, or laundry, or cleaning."

Work like that has already been taken by other mothers and daughters, I know, and probably my mother knows too, but she nods tiredly as I depart. She's hoping I'll find an honest way to earn a little money to tide us over. _Over until when?_ I think. This situation is never going to change.

Where I'm specifically going is to visit Peeta Mellark, this time with a lot more determination, and to see what happens. Even that is only a temporary measure though - a stopgap. Really, what do I think he will offer me? A sandwich? That's not going to go far between two families, but it's the only idea I've got, other than knocking on the head Peacekeeper's door. It's known he pays girls to let him have his sordid way with them. Rumor has it that Ava and Angelica have had a bit of money to spend after paying him a visit, although I don't know if anyone would have dared repeat that particular piece of gossip to Gale.

I'm aware some of the Seam girls enter into arrangements with Peacekeepers. Those ghastly and emotionless warriors who'd shoot us with the slightest provocation are on a regular wage, and none of them have families. Half of them are down in the Hob of a night, if they're not on duty, getting drunk and trying to get girls to sleep with them. Maybe it shows they're not completely heartless after all, if they're trying to find themselves a little warmth. Maybe they'll be my next avenue, if Peeta Mellark doesn't come bounding out of his father's shop promising me enough pies and loaves for seven hungry mouths every day.

Before I get to the baker's shop, though, I'm diverted. Walking along the pavement towards me on the main street I see Madge Undersee, the mayor's daughter, and right out of the blue, she gives me a friendly hello.

"Hi," I respond, head down, and unexpectedly, she asks me to her house. Though I'm on a mission and the diversion isn't really welcome, the combined factors of nervousness about my plan, no Gale, no hunting, and no Prim at home since she's out with my mother again make me accept the invitation.

Despite being a Merc, Madge is a nice girl. Strictly, she's not a Merc really, as she keeps to herself. It could be that she's lonely - or if she's prepared to entertain me - desperate. We sit on her couch which is sure to show an imprint of coaldust the shape of my backside once I stand up, and we drink lemonade. I've never tasted it before, and my tongue chases the strangeness around, tart and delicious, sweet and bitter unable to combine, both asserting themselves.

"I made it myself," Madge says.

"It's very nice," I answer truthfully.

We sit there a bit longer, awkward as can be, since I can't think why she invited me here and I don't know what to say. She's a couple of years older than me, so it's not as though she's ever even been in my class at school.

"Would you like to walk in the garden?" she offers.

Mutely, I nod.

Outside, there's a bit of a breeze, enough to make the leaves rustle, and Madge leads me down a paved path between neat shrubs and tidy flower beds. Fancy someone having the time to tend to all this! Fancy having good earth and a water supply, and then growing things you don't eat! I wouldn't need to go soliciting if I could fill a basket every couple of days from what is growing rampant here in the Undersee's garden, behind high mayoral walls.

Once we're away from the house she turns to me and mutters, "I wanted to speak to you. I want to ask you something."

So this is why I'm here. Her lips are barely moving and I suddenly realize she's afraid of being overhead.

"Yes?"

Picking a daisy and handing it to me with a smile, her words are anything but cheerful.

"I know you know Simeon Deakin. What happened to him?"

Masking surprise, I smile back, playing along. Perhaps someone is watching.

"I really don't know. He disappeared, didn't he? People say he and his mother were taken away."

"Please, Katniss, please. You're a Myna. You might know things. I'm in love with him. It's breaking my heart that I can't find out what happened. I can't make official enquiries because it could get me into terrible trouble."

"You're in love with Simeon? You're his girlfriend?" Astonished, I poke the stem of the daisy into Madge's hair, behind her ear.

"Let's walk a little more," she suggests, and we move further from the house, staying well away from the fences on either side of the expansive lawn.

"A few years ago I started going over to the Deakins' house, taking clothes I'd grown out of to give Pelalina, along with toys. My parents thought that sort of charity was fitting for a mayor's daughter and it reflected well on them, so I was allowed to go. At first I just went to see her, and I grew to love her. That's when I got to know Simeon. I started to want to see him as well. I've loved him ever since. But my parents wouldn't approve, as you can imagine. They'd probably lock me up, and get me a tutor so that I couldn't even leave the house for school. "

"And what about Simeon? Did you tell him? What does he think of it?"

Madge takes both my hands and spins me around, as though we're dancing. You would think her parents wouldn't approve of her current interactions with one of the filthy mining community, since dancing around the garden with me isn't an act of charity. It's an act that might spread class germs.

"He loves me too. He said so. But you can understand how complicated it is. He said that for one thing, Pelalina would be his responsibility once his mother was gone, and whoever he was with would have Pelalina for life. I told him I already cared for her so much that I would always want to be around her. He also pointed out that I'm a Merc, and to be with him I'd have to live in the Seam. I'd have to give up the way of life that I knew, and start over again in very different circumstances. I assured him I'd thought of all that and it was what I wanted, but he said I shouldn't rush to make those sorts of decisions. He also said not to turn anybody else down on his account because the future was uncertain."

"When was that?"

"About six months ago. And now he's gone."

I'm stunned. Pretty Madge could have her pick of any Merc boy, but she wants a Myna, who by birth and decree will always be poor, and has a job so dangerous his life expectancy would be half that of her father's. Of any man in the merchant class. I think back to when I thought Simeon was flirting with me, but didn't take it any further than offering to buy me a drink. At the time, I thought Gale had warned him off. Now it occurs to me that he hadn't pursued anything because his heart wasn't in it. Perhaps because he was already in love - with a girl from the other side.

Still, what little I do know I can't possibly divulge, for all our sakes.

"I'm sorry, Madge. I don't have anything to tell you."

At her crestfallen expression, I add, "If I hear anything I'll let you know, but..."

Turning back towards the house, she nods glumly. Even a Merc knows once somebody disappears, they're gone for good.

"Here, have some flowers to take home," she offers, picking a generous bunch which she holds out to me. I wonder what she'd think if she knew that I'm going to eat them.

Once inside, I need the bathroom. I just need five minutes on my own, really. Madge points up the stairs and tells me which door it is.

I'm good at following directions, so I don't know why I open the wrong door. Inside I find an office - a small room with bookshelves and a desk. In one corner there's a television, the inescapable, inevitable blinking eye that is as much a fact of life as breathing. Interesting to note that being mayor doesn't exempt you from having to have the tv interminably on. The screen is full of Pelalina, then the shot pans back and I see Edan. It appears the two of them have moved a few metres away from the Cornucopia's mouth, and Edan has gone to the lake's edge to fetch water. I wish I could unsee what happens next - but it's too late.

From out of nowhere a spear is launched towards Edan, and it flies true, catching him in the side of the chest. He slumps to the ground, Pelalina approaching him curiously as he falls. She dabs at the blood that seeps through his shirt, and strokes his hair and face lovingly. When he doesn't respond she tries again, giggling at his game, and even tickles him. After a while she seems to decide that he's tired and falling asleep, and so she sings to him, her sweet, pure voice coming clearly through the speakers. It's the Wishers Song - the song about stars, which is a popular lullaby from the Seam. We all know it. And though Pelalina can't really pronounce words her rendition is poignant and affecting.

Forgetting about the bathroom altogether I stare, caught between an onslaught of fury and desolation at Edan's fate, and at the fact that Pelalina, beautiful child, doesn't understand. She doesn't know what death is.

As the camera lingers, she's curling trustingly at his side, ready to sleep too, though it's only mid-afternoon. She nearly jumps out of her skin when the cannon booms. Moments later, when the hovercraft appears above her to take him away she begins to shriek.

And then the most awful thing. Even more awful than knowing she'll be on her own in there now, without so much as a small, wounded fourteen-year-old boy to look out for her.

The hovercraft extends its mechanical claw to collect Edan, but once he's disappeared, the arm descends again, to grasp the distressed and frightened girl.

I watch in horror as Pelalina Deakin is lifted screaming and struggling into the dark underside of the hovercraft and borne away.

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Wow, this story is so not a big hitter. The most readers I've had in a 24-hr period has been 32!

If you're here and having a look, thank you.


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